I have been sharing my tales on my trip to Hokkaido. This time it is on seafood. Hokkaido is famous for hairy crab (kegani) and taraba crab. Hairy crab is native Japanese crab while taraba crab looks like Alaskan king crab, but I am not sure whether they are the same type of crabs. Taraba crabs are brought in by Russian fishing vessels. Taraba crabs are sold live ie swimming in a tank, raw chilled (half of the legs) or boiled and frozen. Just take a look at the prices of taraba crabs and hairy crabs shown in the images. I ate taraba crab at a buffet dinner and ordered a hairy crab at another ala carte dinner. A 400-gramme crab cost 6000 yen and I had to wait for more than 30 minutes for the crab to be boiled’.
Taraba legs
Hairy crabsFirst time I saw ‘aburi sushi’ on the menu while I took sushi on the first day on my arrival in Fukuoka in Oct 09. ‘Aburi’ means burnt or treatment by fire in Japanese. The fish meat on an aburi sushi after fire treatment is still raw, except with the burnt smell.
Aburi sushi After making the sushi, the chef would burn the sushi with a can-gas torch. The thin edges of the small fish were burnt or charred a bit.
At a sushi shop in Sapporo 10 days later, I got the opportunity to see the process of making aburi sushi at the sushi counter.
Shishamon sushiI ordered shishamon sushi which I heard was only available in Hokkaido. Shishamon is a small fish of about 10 cm long with plenty of roe which is usually eaten grilled.
Ika chirimen - (literally means ‘squid noodles’).The chef took less than 2 minutes to dissect a live squid fished out from the tank and sliced the meat into thin strips which look like noodles. When the head with the legs of the squid is detached from the body, the legs could support the head and stand up on the chopping board. See image below.
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